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This article is part of a series on the Family Court which can be viewed here>>
THE FAMILY COURT needs an overhaul – that was the opinion of the former Justice Minister Alan Shatter last year when he announced that a referendum would be held to establish a dedicated Family Court structure.
Fast forward one year and the Department of Justice said that a referendum is no longer necessary and that it believes it can bring it in through legislation alone.
All this week TheJournal.ie brought you case stories from inside the family courts around the country. One observation from days spent at the courts is the sheer number of cases appearing before judges on a daily basis – sometimes up to 50 or 60 cases appear on the call over sheets in the morning.
Government commitment
The Programme for Government states that it is committed to introducing a Constitutional Amendment to “allow for the establishment of a distinct and separate system of family courts to streamline family law court processes and make them more efficient and less costly”.
Even though the constitutional amendment is no longer necessary, the changes still are.
Currently, there are three courts — district, circuit, and high court — each dealing with separate family issues, ranging from custody, maintenance, barring orders, access issues to child abductions. There is no dedicated family court division and there is much overlap.
‘Urgent change’
In 2013, Shatter said “urgent change” is necessary, stating that the current structure is “far from ideal” and that the system had “not greatly improved” since the the Law Reform Commission made these comments in its report on Family Courts in 1996:
The courts are buckling under the pressure of business. Long family law lists, delays, brief hearings, inadequate facilities and over-hasty settlements are too often the order of the day. At the same time, too many cases are coming before the courts which are unripe for hearing, or in which earlier non-legal intervention might have led to agreement and the avoidance of courtroom conflict. Judges dealing with family disputes do not always have the necessary experience or aptitude. There is no proper system of case management…
Last year, Shatter recommended that a two-tier court comprising of a lower and higher Family Court, staffed with dedicated judiciary, specialised and expert in family law be implemented.
Shatter acknowledged that this was a “controversial” proposal:
There are few who have experience of family law hearings who would
argue that every party in a family law case is always dealt with in a satisfactory and sensitive manner by all members of the judiciary. Just because a person has been a solicitor or a member of the Bar in practice for the minimum 10 years required to be appointed as a judge it does not mean that he or she has necessarily amassed the insight, qualities and expertise necessary to deal with all cases.
Specialised training for judges needed
He said family breakdown and parenting disputes are particularly sensitive and painful areas that require completely different skills from those required to hear a criminal trial or adjudicate in civil and commercial matters.
“The temperament and common sense of judges sitting in the new family court will be as crucial as their fund of legal knowledge,” he said.
Catherine Ghent of Gallagher Shatter Solicitors told TheJournal.ie that specialised training is something that judges in family courts should receive, adding that it is prerequisite for judges dealing with criminal cases involving children, so it should also be the case in family law.
She also said that a judicial oversight review board should be established in terms of assessing conduct, stating that there are some legitimate concerns about the outcomes of some cases.”If things are investigated, the ruling might be upheld,” she said, but added that this oversight board, as well the media reporting on family court cases will increase the public’s confidence in the court system, which many believe is shrouded in secrecy.
There have been calls that the courts should be “less adversarial” with a vision that appeals could be made to the higher court or perhaps another arm of the family court system.
At present an appeal from a family law matter initially dealt with in the District Court involves a full rehearing in the Circuit Court. It was recommended that, in future, family court appeals would be based on transcripts which would reduce delays and costs.
Court facilities
The facilities of the family courts is another sticking point for many working in the system. Most District Courts have family law days, which a layperson might question what the issue is?
However, imagine you are in applying for a for a barring order against your husband or wife who beat you last night, and he or she is across the foyer, or that you are in a custody battle and you have no where to place your children for the day as you have no idea when your case will be called and the kids are left sitting on the reception floor for hours.
Family law cases are special as they involve young people, which is why some argue that separate venues, that are more child-friendly, that have adequate private consultation rooms and a co-located welfare and assessment services available as well as in-court mediation facilities should be available.
It was flagged that a special court was to be constructed for the Family Court, similar to that of the Central Criminal Court, but a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said that the location of the new courts is yet to be considered.
‘Totally inadequate’
Ghent told TheJournal.ie that new facilities were a necessity, stating that the main Family Court in Dublin, Dolphin House, is “totally inadequate and inappropriate for its purpose”.
“The building is simply not suitable for family law. There are no proper waiting rooms or consultation rooms, children who are there with their parents all day are left to sit on the floor and peoples’ privacy is being breached due to the facilities as clients have to discuss their business in the corridor.”
Court closures
She criticised the closure of regional courts, such as Dún Laoghaire, where family court cases are heard. Under changes implemented by the Courts Services, families will now have to travel to Dublin to have their case heard.
“This is a retrograde step,” said Ghent, adding that Dolphin House is already struggling to cope with the sheer number of cases coming through the door, so with the additional cases being transferred to Dublin, it could reach breaking point.
“What people forget about family law is that it is not like any other division of law, it is about families, meaning mothers and fathers often have no where to leave their children when they attend court and must take them with them.
“Not to mention the additional cost for families having to travel into the city centre. All these are practical things that impact on families and make the experience that more stressful.
“When it makes it difficult for people to access the justice system, that is when the service is not being provided properly,” she said.
Speaking about the Family Court process, the outgoing Ombudsman for Children said that other systems in other countries should be looking at adding that the Irish system can be very stressful for both children and families.
Can’t see the video, click here>>>
Mandatory mediation
The Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald seems eager to push on with one issue – the use of mediation, prior to cases presenting to the court.
She commended the “Dolphin House Initiative” where mediation services are available at the court and welcomed that the initiative has been extended to other locations in Cork, Nenagh and Naas.
She also welcomed that mandatory mediation for applicants for legal services in Cork, on a pilot basis, had been introduced, adding that it is her intention to provide a statutory framework with the Mediation Bill to move away from a “litigation first” approach to resolving family law disputes.
Dr Roisin O’Shea, an Irish Research Council Scholar and Senior Partner in Arc Mediation, who conducted a substantial piece of research on the Family Court said she is in favour of mandatory mediation, while solicitor Kathy Irwin says she is not totally in favour of “forced mandatory mediation” but said an increase in its use was positive.
Pressure on the system
The pressure on the courts system has a big impact on families as well as having a knock-on effect on other sectors.
A lot of people complain that there aren’t enough court hearings. A client can find that their case is scheduled to be heard, but on the day it does not get reached, meaning they wait around all day. The next time the court will deal with it is months down the line.
The professionals that are involved in cases are also affected. Social workers must appear in court to swear in their report on a case. There is no set time for the cases to be heard, so social workers sometimes have to wait full days for their case to be heard.
Head of Services at the Irish Foster Care Association (IFCA) Breda O’Donavan, said that social workers are already stretched and that time spent in court giving evidence could be spent on the ground doing social work with children, some of whom have not been allocated a social worker at all.
Solicitor Wesley Hudson of Hudson Solicitors in Dun Laoghaire acknowledged that this is an issue and questioned whether there could be a better method used so that there is no time wasting, but he said that is the way the family courts operates: “It can be a long waiting game.”
The caseload is also reported to be having a huge impact on resources of the Free Legal Aid Board, which provides legal advice and representation to those that can not fund it. A source said that on some occassions, solicitors were given so many cases that it was difficult to have time to be directed by all their clients in time for the hearing. This is in turn holds up the courts when a case is heard and the solicitor has yet to take instruction from their client and can therefore not proceed with the case. This is just another clog in the system putting pressure of the family courts.
Legislation publication
The Family Court structure which has remained largely unchanged since 1924. A statement from the Department of Justice to TheJournal.ie stated that in order to bring in central reforms committed to by the Government the necessary legislative measures will have to be introduced “to deal with all relevant family law matters including the functions and jurisdiction of the family court”.
“It is intended that an outline of the necessary legislation will be published before the end of 2014.”
The department said it aims to publish a general scheme for the Family Law Courts Bill in the autumn, (now) and enacting the Bill in the first half of 2015. With the Law Reform recommendations for change being made over 18 years ago, swift action by Government should be taken sooner rather than later.
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Agree 100% with Joe Burns. The Family court system is unconstitutional. The whole thing needs to be opened up to public scrutiny so we the people can decide how to proceed. They are a sham money making illegal racket carried out in secret behind closed doors. They benefit wealthy professionals at the expense of families and children.
100% truth John.
Solicit-ors solicit business for the court corporation. Us service users are led to believe solicitors are there to help us. No they are there to do open wallet surgery.
Notice the HSE teams of solicitors with limitless pot of money which is used to snatch children, not necessarily abused children but loved, well mannered ones who are easy to traumatize and warehouse with foster carers. Its a massive industry and growing with children as the commodity. Its all copied from UK, USA Sweden etc. Always the same pattern. Now we have the warehousing and assimilating of non nationals into Irish RC families. No you will not see that in the public domain. But if journalists got to see the files, they would see all this and more.
The secret family courts are after all the old Inquisition courts with the same rules. Even the Hammer of the Witch torture manual is available for anyone who wants to know more.
Unless one has been through this secret system, they cannot begin to understand the corruption, threats to female solicitors with children, threats to use ECT on abused children to keep abuse hidden. Lots of money for psychiatrists too and so called expert witnesses- who as Professor Ireland pointed out are not experts at all.
The judges are groomed to believe that a 1 day course makes them experts too.
However what is really worrying is the grooming of these professionals to believe child rape, incest does no harm to our children. All Kinsey programs accepted. PAS- another pro pedophile quack science and disproven but in Ireland we use old theories like MSBP which have been debunked eons ago in other countries. We are so far behind, its like being in medieval setting.
http://www.fassit.co.uk/child_custody_reversal.htm
Richard Ducote an attorney at law in New Orleans stated in 2003 of Gardner and his PAS theory that,
“PAS is a bogus, pro-paedophiliac fraud concocted by Richard Gardner. I was the last attorney to cross-examine Gardner in Patterson New Jersey. …He has not been court appointed to do anything for decades. The only two appellate courts in the country who have considered the question of whether PAS meets the Frye test i.e. whether it is generally accepted in the scientific community, said it does not. Gardner and his theory have done untold damage to sexually and physically abused children and their protective parents. PAS has been rejected by every reputable organisation considering it. In a Florida case in which I was recently involved, when the Judge insisted on a Frye Hearing, Gardner simply did not show up. Perhaps because of this he finally realised that the entire nation was on to his scam, he committed suicide on May 25. Lets pray that his ridiculous, dangerous PAS foolishness died with him.”
For those who have never experienced the secret court system, here is a perfect overview and see how it mirrors the witch trials of the dark ages.
Let there be light in the dark Irish secret courts.
http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=353
The Persecution Manual
‘The Persecution Manual’ is the title being given to the procedures being used by Social Services in certain countries, in particular Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the other English-speaking countries. The title has arisen from a comprehensive study of the ‘persecution strategies’ employed by Social Services by a Swedish academic. This study can now be used in constitutional and human rights actions by parents against Social Services.
The title of the study is ‘The Rhetoric Case – Persecution strategies in a child care order investigation’ and it is written by Linda Ärlig, Department of Social Science, the Psychology Section, University of Örebro, Sweden.
It is an immensely important document, which can be put to good use to protect persecuted parents. The full text is here.
At least one attempt has been made to use it, in a FOI request to Leicestershire County Council, to which, as could be expected, they kicked to touch. It will however have to be used in courts, in countries such as Ireland where the persecution strategies clearly infringe the Irish Constitution. It has already been established that they infringe the Swedish Constitution. In countries such as the UK, where there is no written constitution, the Human Rights Act can be used as can other articles of the European Convention on Hunan Rights. We are now asking one of our strategists to look at how best it can be employed.
Here is a flavour of Linda Ärlig’s findings of persecution strategies used by Social Services.
The authority knows best
Blackening the names of the parents
Making children and parents to appear in need of care
Pushing through and sticking to decisions that have been made
Disregarding laws and regulations
Destroying relations of importance to the family
Influencing the reader
Disregarding elementary aspects of objectivity
The use of Rhetoric
Withholding and fabrication techniques – - – results in biased, non-factual and inaccurate reporting as summarised in the following six groups:
Influencing the reader through language
Making the client seem pathological
Ignoring objectivity aspects
Exercising power and control
“The authorities know best”
“Feel-believe-think-experience- interpret”
A temporary fix
If you are in conflict with your local authority about any dealings in which you believe the above strategies have been used against you, demand that Linda Ärlig’s report be considered to see if it supports your case and, if that fails, take a summary of it, or even what is written above, into the family court and ask the judge to consider it.
Note the relationship between the Persecution Manual and the
the Malleus Malleficarum.
Correction Christina, 50 to 60 appearances on call overs in each court in every town and county in Ireland, its a lot bigger than you say.
The Law Reform published more recent recommendations in 2010 http://www.lawreform.ie/_fileupload/Reports/r101Family(1).pdf, and once again nothing much has changes.
The A&E get stick for leaving people on trollies on the corridors in Hospitals for say up to a few days, well people in Family Law courts are on trollies there for up to 2 & 3 YEARS, its a total disgrace, and its the children of the parents who are getting hard done by as a result or the problems with the Courts and legal system ( in fact there is no System, its more like confusion).
Allow me to summarise the legal situation on Family Courts. At present they are in fact illegal, unconstitutional and in conflict with Human Rights Law, but the government want to make it legal.
Most people have no idea how this works.
If you are accused of child abuse or neglect, you will be investigated by two separate bodies and prosecuted in two distinct courts under two different Burdens of Proof. In the Criminal Justice System you are innocent until proven guilty, judged under the burden of proof of Beyond all Reasonable Doubt and not punished until found guilty.
In the Family Court System you are guilty until proven innocent and punished straight away. You are tried under a lower burden of proof of Balance of Probabilities in a secret court. You are not entitled to know what evidence is being used against you, your lawyer my be threatened by the CFA solicitor to stretch-out the case. The CFA will knowingly bring in Hired Gun “Experts”, some of whom have previously perjured themselves in court or are not qualified to practice. You are gagged so as you cannot disclose “anything said by anybody” and will be jailed in secret if you protest your innocence.
When I say the family courts are illegal you can see why above. You can be innocent or not even prosecuted in the criminal system and you are still guilty in the family system. The governments have known that family courts are illegal and unconstitutional. Enda Kenny made a slip up that there would be 2 Children’s Referenda and a justice minister who was previously know as “Mr Family Law” made the gaffe that we needed to “put the family courts on a constitutional basis” which proves they know that family courts are unconstitutional. How can it be legal and lawful to be innocent in one court and guilty in another?
The lobbyists of the Child Abuse Industry, many of them NGO’s posing as “charities”, have been pushing governments to implement laws and measures to increase the size of their businesses since they took over from the Church and the nuns. In a decade they have successfully doubled the size of the industry to twice it’s size even though the crime statistics of the Gardai and DPP clearly show that we have not suddenly become a nation of child abusers. Isn’t it interesting to note that the Journal seeks opinions from lobbyists, all of whom make a very good living from the Child Abuse Industry? They have also censored many of my comments on previous stories.
Irish parents should be outraged at what is happening in this corrupt, unjust and illegal system. When they say that legislation may not be necessary, they are counting on the Children’s Referendum passing into law. Remember 11 November 2012 when you were duped into giving away your parental rights? It was a corrupt, carefully orchestrated sham by the government to get you to give away your rights but it has not been passed into law yet as the Supreme Court are still deciding if the referendum was held legally or not. It has already decided that the government acted illegally in one part of the case.
This is a system that has been in crisis since the nuns and if anyone thinks that children are better off since Ryan Report they seriously need to pay attention. So the bottom line is that that the government feel that they can implement unconstitutional legislation to take away even more parental rights and you don’t have the right to decide in a referendum. Even Mr Family Law felt a referendum was necessary but Madam Social Worker feels she knows what is in your Best Interests.
Thank you.
It has to be pointed out too where the slogan “best interests of the child originated? Nazi Germany.
Now let us ask ourselves, why are social workers using Hitler SS energy signatures in Ireland in 2014?
The same language re assimilating non nationals is used in 2014 Ireland by social workers.
Same language re disposable kids is used.
The same warehousing of kids is used.
The same deliberate breaking down of children- a crime is used through trauma- but a social worker, psychologist can legally abuse any child and be untouchable and laugh at you if you point it out.
How about we mention 1 social worker being accompanied by 14 others- for support to court – talk about hunting in packs and we are footing that bill. Then we hear we need more social workers? Well 14 social workers coming to support 1 colleague to threaten the father and his solicitor is not legal either. Its called bully boy tactics.
I have observed social workers for 20 years now and see many sadistic schadenfreude diseased creatures- identical to the old men and women of god. Clearly this job has attracted some seriously mentally ill psychopathic people. We pay for these people with their God complex to protect our children? Are we crazy to be allowing his story to repeat itself? Have our children not suffered enough under the church regime?
To add insult to injury, we have the Annual RED MASS for the family law judges, boldly telling us that the RC church runs the court system.
Barristers swear allegiance to the LONDON B.A.R corporation?
BAR swears allegiance to Vatican .
It all makes total sense in the end.
If our child protection system is so good then why are we known as the EU hub of child trafficking? Who does the great corporate parent loose so many children and is never arrested and punished? Because the state does not prosecute itself.
Commenting on here, won’t bring about reforms and you’d wonder what they actually do in the Dail with too many of them there. Maybe that’s the problem, too many indians and not enough chiefs?
@Stephen, you’re absolutely right that protesting is of little value. I was one of the many people who protested outside the Dail with the aunts of Danny Talbot and the McAnaspie family for almost a year which eventually resulted in the supposedly “independent” inquiry of 196 deaths of 260 children who died in State “Care” in a decade. It wasn’t until the Tracy Fay report that people took some notice. Isn’t it amazing that nobody who ‘cared for” these children was held accountable in any way?
I would respectfully dispute that posting comments doesn’t have any value. On my blogs and websites I have found that the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and corrupt CFA (HSE) Soliicitors have been combing my comments and producing them in family courts in an effort to stop me and others assisting families. But I have also been complimented by judges who themselves are extremely frustrated at this corrupt system. 8,000 cases a year and growing. the CFA legal budget is €10 million but has actually been €30 million a year for some time now. When they can bring in Hired Gun Barristers at €3000/day against McKenzie Friends who are not being paid because they are losing cases, something is very wrong with the “Justice” System.
The problem is not a “shortage of social workers” mantra that they keep spouting, the problem is that there are too many chiefs and too many Indians and when you add more, it will result in the industry doubling in size in another decade. When 260 extra social workers were added in 2010, Ireland took 3.7 TIMES more children into “Care” on a per capita basis than the UK who also had a bumper year. Does a billion a year and 4,500 Indians to “Care for” 6,500 children seem unreasonable to you?
I agree Joe.
Social workers are failures if they take a case to court but this is not how it is delivered to the public.
Unless all parties can see all documents before the court, how do service users know the truth? We all know the untruths in reports from HSE?
The Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald seems eager to push on with one issue – the use of mediation, prior to cases presenting to the court.”
How can victims of DV be expected to mediate.Its like forcing the victim to bow to the perpetrator.
Experienced it all.
My proposal for change- one that is easy to change,
I propose to begin with a short description of Art 6 of Human Rights.
There must be equality of arms between the parties,
I would then raise the matter re Family law proceedings where this is not adhered to even today.
http://brophysolicitorsfamilylaw.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/section-47-reports.html
One of the problems with the reports is that solicitors are told that they can discuss the contents of the report with the client but they cannot give the report itself to the client.
Section 47(3) of the 1995 Act says “a copy of a report under subsection (1) shall be given to the parties to the proceedings concerned and (if he or she is not a party to the proceedings) to the person to whom it relates and may be received in evidence in the proceedings”.
A practice has developed in the Circuit Court whereby the solicitors for the parties can make an application to the judge to obtain a copy of the report and we then have the strange situation whereby the solicitor knows what is in the report but the client (who paid many thousands for the report) does not and cannot be given a copy of the report.
If a client has a solicitor who is not particularly familiar with family law practice and procedure, the solicitor might not even get this report until the morning of the hearing itself.
I would ask why not?
In order to have open transparency and full disclosure all parties must have copies of all material before the court.
Lord Justice Thorpe and LJ Wall learned this in Strasbourg.
So in UK family courts all parties have actual copies of section 47 reports at least 7 days before the hearing so they have a chance to prepare and rebut anything in the reports, correct errors etc.
From experience I have seen copies of reports here and children mentioned who had absolutely no family connection to the case before the court. No one knew who these children were. We later learned it was a different family in Manchester- no connection to the case.
So In Ireland we all need to see actual copies of the reports so we are 100% sure there are no inaccuracies in there and only parties to proceedings would know these facts.
2.Also we cannot keep using the excuse re Irish mothers being too feeble minded to be able to cope with these reports. Its medieval to think its still done in 2104.
Why do HSE etc still believe we women are not able to deal with emotional aspects of the court ?
Must be the old womb- hysteria mentality .!
Then I would provide the case Law from Strasbourg.
Then I will explain how I got all my reports using this law through Data Commissioner and Attorney General. Once the case law is provided there is no excuse.
In the case of Nideröst-Huber v. Switzerland 27th January 1997 Case Number 104/1995/610/698.
24. ….the concept of fair trial also implies in principle the right for the parties to a trial to have knowledge of and comment on all evidence adduced or observations filed
In that case the Government argued that this rule applied to cases where,…. an authority had taken the initiative of submitting arguments or observations intended to advise or influence a court. …..The Court noted that even though the observations in issue ran to only one page they nevertheless constituted a reasoned opinion on the merits of the appeal, and explicitly called for it to be dismissed. As the Delegate of the Commission observed, they were therefore manifestly aimed at influencing the Federal Court’s decision.
It is also of little consequence that the case concerned civil litigation, where the national authorities, as the Government rightly pointed out, enjoy greater latitude than in the criminal sphere … According to the Lobo Machado and Vermeulen judgments, on this point the requirements derived from the right to adversarial proceedings are the same in both civil and criminal cases
Nor is the position altered when, in the opinion of the courts concerned, the observations do not present any fact or argument which has not already appeared in the impugned decision. Only the parties to a dispute may properly decide whether this is the case; it is for them to say whether or not a document calls for their comments. What is particularly at stake here is litigants’ confidence in the workings of justice, which is based on, inter alia, the knowledge that they have had the opportunity to express their views on every document in the file.
– In case of Ocalan v Turkey 2003 (Application No. 46221/99) the Court reiterated that under the principle of equality and arms one of the features of a fair trial is that “each party must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present his case under conditions which do not place him under a disadvantage vis a vis his or her opponent.”
In the case of Lobo Machado v. Portugal, 22 January 1996; Regard being had, therefore, to what was at stake for the applicant in the proceedings in the Supreme Court and to the nature of the Deputy Attorney-General’s opinion, in which it was advocated that the appeal should be dismissed (see paragraph 14 above), the fact that it was impossible for Mr. Lobo Machado to obtain a copy of it and reply to it before judgment was given infringed his right to adversarial proceedings.
That right means in principle the opportunity for the parties to a criminal or civil trial to have knowledge of and comment on all evidence adduced or observations filed, even by an independent member of the national legal service, with a view to influencing the court’s decision.
The Court finds that this fact in itself amounts to a breach of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1).
Until the Applicant asked if a bench memorandum had been prepared the Applicant could not raise the issue.
Before Lord Justice Wall on 23.03.2006 and LJ Thorpe on 20.09.2006
the Applicant had raised the same issue yet on both occasions the Lord Justices stated that they had looked at the documents themselves. In fact when Lord Justice Wall was asked he shouted out ‘it’s none of your business.’
Lord Justice Thorpe stated that in all the thousands of cases he had dealt with, no lawyer had ever asked him that question.]”
So we could begin with this.
Joe, there’s no evidence that “Madam Social Worker”, as you call her, has done anything wrong. I know some social workers personally and I know that they studied social care in order to help vulnerable people.
The question is Ciaran, “is it working?” Do children actually benefit from this system? the evidence shows it doesn’t. The system fails in 2 ways, by taking the wrong children and not taking children in actual need. It then fails further by damaging these children with “Care” in 80% of cases. It’s not about people or personalities, it’s about a billion a year industry that harms far more children than it helps. Do Irish children not deserve a world-class system of protection? Do you have any confidence in the government “Cherishing all the children of Ireland equally”?
Ciaran.social workers learn social policy mainly.Not child development etc.
Honestly, Joe, I believe that the system is seriously flawed.
Some local district courts were no more than valleys of squinting windows for rubber necks. Many courts were often held in the ballroom of a local hotel or pub, GAA club, community centre etc. Local litigants were put off by such conditions. While bringing justice to the people is a good idea, it is better that properly prepared centres, with proper facilities ,meeting rooms etc be made available. I often saw litigants at district courts trying to get a word in the ear of a solicitor standing outside in the rain.
At least now in larger centres privacy is ensured esp for family law cases etc.
have your say